The Crime Library is a website

Website

A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

 documenting major crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

s, criminal

Criminal law

Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

s, and trial

Trial

A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...

s, forensics

Forensics

Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...

, and criminal profiling from books, police reports, crime television shows, and writers. It is owned and operated by truTV, a cable network which is part of Time Warner

Time Warner

Time Warner is one of the world's largest media companies, headquartered in the Time Warner Center in New York City. Formerly two separate companies, Warner Communications, Inc...

's Turner Broadcasting System

Turner Broadcasting System

Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. is the Time Warner subsidiary managing the collection of cable networks and properties started and acquired by Robert Edward "Ted" Turner starting in the mid-1970s. The company has its headquarters in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia. TBS, Inc...

.

Many of its articles are about recent crimes in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 but the site also contains information about historically notorious characters of various countries, particularly the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 dating back to the 15th century. Focuses of the site include serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

s, gangster

Gangster

A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....

s, celebrity crimes, cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

s, spies

SPY

SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...

, and terrorists.

The Crime Library was founded by Marilyn J. Bardsley in January 1998. Court TV, forerunner of truTV, purchased the Crime Library in September 2000, the same year now sister website The Smoking Gun

The Smoking Gun

The Smoking Gun is a website that posts legal documents, arrest records, and police mugshots on a daily basis. The intent is to bring to the public light information that is damning, shocking, outrageous, or amazing, yet also somewhat obscure or unreported by more mainstream media sources...

was acquired by Court TV. It is currently hosted on truTV's Web site.